The 2014 Annual Potter Games
by peace and joyce
Summary: Thirty years after the end of the First Wizarding War; and Lord Voldemort remains in power. As his reign of terror spans the globe, his loyal Death Eaters carry out the annual festival known as The Potter Games. The rules are perennial. 24 go in, 1 comes out. AU. Submit your own wizard. *open*


_31st October 1981_

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(Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, p281)

The green light filled the cramped hallway, it lit the pram pushed against the wall, it made the banisters glare like lightening rods and James Potter fell like a marionette whose strings were cut...

He could hear her screaming from the upper floor, trapped, but as long as she was sensible she, at least, had nothing to fear... He climbed the steps, listening with faint amusement to her attempts to barricade herself in... She had no wand upon her either... How stupid they were and how trusting, thinking that their safety lay in friends, that weapons could be discarded even for moments...

He forced the door open, cast aside the chair and boxes hastily piled against it with one lazy wave of his wand... And there she stood, the child in her arms. At the sight of him, she dropped her son into the cot behind her and threw her arms wide, as if this would help, as if shielding him from sight she hoped to be chosen instead...

"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"

"Stand aside you silly girl... Stand aside, now..."

"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead-"

* * *

Suddenly, he found himself intrigued. An odd choice of words. What on earth did she hope to achieve with them? Did she really think it would make any difference?

He was used to begging and pleading, true, yet he could not recall at present any time when an exchange of lives was mentioned. Certainly not for something as small and insignificant and entirely replaceable as a baby.

"Are you quite sure?"

She nodded fervently. He almost wanted to laugh. It was so utterly incongruous.

"You'd give your life up, for this one baby?"

She nodded again.

"What about... The life of another?"

"I-"

"Would you?"

She looked down at the floor, her hands tightening around the cot.

"Anything. I'd do anything-"

"Would you?" Shameful, she nodded.

"I have to protect him. He's my baby."

"How many?"

"What?" She was startled now, blinking with confusion, the words seeming to stick in her throat. She went limp, still hanging onto the bars of the cot, still shielding the incumbent no matter how uncomfortable or awkward she looked.

"How many? How much blood would you shed to keep him alive?"

"Whatever- whatever it took."

"What about children? Would you let them die, just so that your son could live?"

"You- you can't ask me-"

"But you would, wouldn't you? A very illogical reaction, yet so human. How many?"

"Anything." Her responses were growing tedious now.

"What about schoolchildren? Slaughtered every year, to pay the price for each year your son would continue to live?"

"Please, please spare my son. Not Harry. Just not harry. please, please! I'd do anything!"

"And what if those children were not even killed quickly- forced to kill each other while I watch and do nothing to prevent it?"

"Not Harry-"

"Yes, yes. I know." The repetition of it all was making him impatient.

With crushing force he prised her fingers off. She struggled and screamed as she realised that nothing she could say would stop him. It seemed more prudent to finish them all, the woman might pick up her wand from downstairs- not that she could defeat him, Lord Voldemort, even then- but Severus' pleadings had been yet more insistent and he was determined that her price would be exacted. On all.

He waved his wand and she screamed loudest of all. The baby, silent until now, began to yell with surprising volume. The chair expanded and seemed to swallow her as it wrapped itself around her and caged her on the floor. She shook it, yet it did not budge and seemed to absorb. Her pleas finally muffled. He could concentrate on the job at hand.

"24" he said finally, addressing the wide green eyes of Harry Potter. "3 girls and 3 boys from each house, one for each of the deathly hallows. Six promising young lives from each house, just to satisfy the price of one desperate mother. All to save one. Therefore, they shall fight to the death, until there is just one survivor.

"And henceforth this pageant shall be forever known, as **The Potter Games."**

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**OK... The following spaces are left (I will update my profile if and when those spaces get filled)**

**2 Gryffindor girls**

**2 Gryffindor boys**

**2 Hufflepuff boys**

**1 ravenclaw boy**

**1 slitherin girl**

**1 slitherin boy**

**You can submit more than one tribute. So pm me the slots you want and I'll send you the form!**


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